NATIONAL WORK AT BRITISH MUSEUM — BATHER. 633 



few striking instances are fresh in my personal experience, but I 

 refrain from closer allusion. Why should this be? Is it laziness, 

 or is it not rather part of that ignorance which it is an object of this 

 article to dispel? Probably the latter, for a well-known British 

 zoologist was recently found to believe that the specimens exhibited 

 in the public gallery represented the whole collection of fishes in 

 the Natural History Museum. He may have been an extreme case, 

 but he was not an isolated one. Few, indeed, appreciate the riches 

 of the museum, or the facilities placed by its officers at the disposal 

 of all single-minded seekers after knowledge. 



It is also not realized how glad we should all be to accept and to 

 retain for future generations of scientific workers the material used 

 by the researchers of to-day. It would certainly be of great service 

 to retain samples of the plants and animals used in important 

 breeding experiments ; by this I do not mean mounted exhibits, such 

 as we have at the Natural History Museum, but ordinary adult 

 specimens of the actual material, prepared for storage. If that were 

 done there need never be any uncertainty as to the species with which 

 anyone had worked, and, though names might change, the standard 

 specimen would remain a perpetual witness. Microscope slides con- 

 stitute another form of evidence which might be preserved in 

 museums with the greatest ease. Slides that remain in private 

 ownership are generally destroyed. 



If the true nature of museum work is not understood, even by men 

 of science; if the advantages to be gained from a greater use of 

 museums are not realized; if there is distrust rather than coopera- 

 tion between those who are working for the same end by diverse 

 methods — then it may be that the fault is in part our own. Perhaps 

 we withdraw too ostensibly from the profanum vulgus, and display 

 too little interest in men and matters outside the walls of our den. 

 In our own interests, as well as in those of our country, this state 

 of things must not continue. We must no longer pretend that the 

 more or less intellectual gratification of the man in the street is our 

 chief aim. Let us dare to be frank with the people, neither deceiving 

 them as to our objects, nor leaving them ignorant. The popular 

 articles being issued by the United States National Museum, and 

 largely intended for use by the press, are an example -of judicious 

 and dignified advertisement most worthy of our imitation. It 

 sounds a truism to say that the greatest enemy of knowledge is 

 ignorance, but for all that the remark will bear some pondering over. 

 If we can not justify and explain our particular bits of work to the 

 men of ordinary education, we may find possibly that we can not 

 justify them to ourselves. That, at any rate, would be a gain. I 

 believe that the most esoteric branches of museum work can be 

 justified, to ourselves, to our scientific colleagues, and to the public; 

 and that it is our bounden duty to do so without delay. 



